His motto was not that “form follows function” but that “form follows beauty”. Like the functionalists he worked in reinforced concrete, but found poetry in it. He rejected right angles in favour of the “liberated, sensual curves” found in “the mountains of my country, in the sinuousness of its rivers, in the waves of the ocean, and on the body of the beloved woman”—shapes displayed in the stunning setting and bright, clear sunlight of his home city, Rio de Janeiro.